


Water

by 9_of_Clubs



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Nostalgia, melancholia, possible happy future, short piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1282306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The scent of the ocean feels familiar as it washes over him, the rustling of the waves as they break and crash on the sand, the slight stirring of a breeze through his hair... Or a snippet of a moment that could be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The scent of the ocean feels familiar as it washes over him, the rustling of the waves as they break and crash on the sand, the slight stirring of a breeze through his hair, all of it aches quiet nostalgia in the burrows of his chest. But the beach of his memories certainly isn’t this, this empty, private, rocky place, just a hint of a chill breaking through the warmth of the afternoon. No, the humid bayous of his youthful home are far away, the sticky heat of them long evaporated from his skin, lingering only at the edges of his imagination. Everything seems far away from here.

His toes curl through the cool sand, shoes in hand, as he turns to look at the other man behind him, who cuts through the outline of the sky as though part of the mountains that loom around them. 

“It’s quiet here.” He says finally, holding the gaze for a moment and then finding the ocean’s waters again. “Didn’t think we’d ever make it to quiet again.” 

The answering hum behind him holds a question threaded through it, one he doesn’t know if he has the answer to, or will ever for that matter. His chin tilts up to catch the rays of sun and he doesn’t acknowledge it, doesn’t fish for half garbled words that won’t help. 

“I think I’ll stay out here for a while.” He says after the beats of silence stretch long around them, not uneasy exactly, though never fully comfortable, but then mending things never are. He lets himself drop to the sand, pushes his fingers in, curls into the peace of the moment because he’s learned to never let moments go for granted. 

Hannibal lingers, for a time. He can feel his presence strong for minutes as he loses himself in his thoughts, and then again, an acknowledgment in the white noise of his mind, when he fades slowly. The slight thump of a door sounding as the other retreats back to their house. 

Maybe one day soon, the thought whispers through, as red colors the sky and the tide finally makes it all the way to his toes, it’ll be their home.


	2. Floating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow them in.

He floats back up the beach like a ghost, when the stars have come out and all the light is gone. He hadn’t realized he’d stayed out quite that long, had lost himself to twining thoughts and the different voices that lurk in his subconscious. For a time, he’d lingered in life before, had imagined other endings for his story, content with Alana, tucked into his home-no-longer, far away across the waves. Maybe a child, his mind dwells, deceptively, imagines his voice twisting around the words, _Daddy loves you_. But the vision had crumbled eventually, as it always does, as it would have, even if he’d never met Hannibal. That wasn’t going to be the life for him; the call of normalcy not nearly enough to drown out the purring of something else... Something that had always been present in his heart and mind, in the very core of him, in the shadowy corners he’d tried so hard to ignore.

Inside, the cavernous house is as dark and quiet as its outside, the dim light of the entryway only spilling so far into the front room. Sparks of it glance off mirrors and bathe the air in an eerie glow. He spares himself the phantom sensations of being watched, there is no one around them for miles, and if eyes were actually on him he would know it. Still, something about the stillness, the stark loneliness he feels emanating from the space disarms him, makes him crave either the safety of his own discarded solitude or of multitudes of faceless neighbors. He’s never experienced the latter, but imagines it now and again, in these silent nights when there is no one else in this place, just the silence and the sea. He runs towards neither of those things though, instead casts the water one last glance and turns away.

As he steps another few steps into the house, the distinct sounds of cooking and the rich aromas of it come to cement his path, take him with them out of the emptiness. They lead him like chattering friends down another darkened hallway, at the end of which a brighter, warmer, light comes dancing out to greet him, to beckon him in, as strands of some sonata or another glide to take his hand. The uncomfortableness of before fades in the face of Hannibal’s magic, in the way he infects the space and turns all the heart pounding darkness into light. In the presence he creates Will remembers why he has come here, why he has done this, understands clearly that nothing else will ever be able to slide into his hollow spaces.

He lets Hannibal come into view wordlessly, a sudden dryness to his throat, an odd clenching to his stomach. Hannibal, of course, does not need his voice.

“Did you find the answers you were seeking in the waves?” He pauses to place something into a bowl and then turns his eyes to Will. He’s mesmerizing in the softness of the lighting here, in the way it caresses his skin. For a moment, Will finds himself distracted by the imagining, by what his own fingers could do instead, Hannibal’s lips quirk just a hint.

“No.” He murmurs, when he’s indulged himself long enough, watching the not smile fade at his words. If he were anyone else, he might have missed the darkness that shades the other’s eyes out at the word, the way he stiffens, just a hair, muscles clenching, fingers overdoing the pressure of whatever they are clutching just so. Will almost swears he hears the sharp intake of breath which in no universe would actually occur. He reads the worry in Hannibal in a way only he will ever be able to. If there were candles, he’s sure they would have blown out, the music still playing coming to a grinding halt around them. The magic falters for a moment.

He lets himself come closer in reality now, lets his fingers comes up to curve around the lines of Hannibal’s cheek, breathes the conglomeration of their life together here and lets it bring him truth. Even without his imagination, his understanding of Hannibal, of everything they’ve harrowed through together, would supply him with the answers he seeks. Hannibal has brought him here, because he thought Will would like it, has taken him to the ocean and to solitude because it is all he has ever craved. But despite it all, the other doesn’t think it’s enough, that he’s enough, and with everything he’s done, it’s difficult for Will to make promises, doesn’t disagree entirely with the assessment. There’s no place for romantic declarations of undying love here, but he gives what he can. The only certainty, he has come to the conclusion, he can supply.

“But I don’t intend on leaving.”

The music starts again, and as Will leans over to watch, Hannibal’s lips curve once more as he turns his head to explain the dish, peace flows through him for the first time in a very long while.


End file.
